What a bummer when I discovered I couldn’t run the over-clocking utility eeectl on my new ASUS Eee PC 1005PE to increase the netbook’s display brightness level beyond the limited (and way too-dim) maximum brightness level ASUS enables. ASUS purposely locks out maximum brightness in order to make super-long battery life claims like 11- to 14-hours on its latest 1005PE and 1001P models.

Running eeectl and choosing the “ultrabright” setting on these latest “Pine Trail” Intel Atom N450-based models has no effect on the display.

Thankfully ASUS’s recently released BIOS update (0804 – 02/05/2010) fixed my 1005PE’s dim-bulb brightness limit by installing two tweaks: “Update Brightness table” and “Modify thermal policy” (as shown in figure).

Although the BIOS 0804 update carries an early February release date, the downloadable file is no where to be found on ASUS’s Eee PC support site.

To get the update, run your netbook’s ASUS Update for Eee PC utility, choose and run the BIOS 0804 option, reboot, and low and behold, a brighter display.

(For me, this update came just in the nick of time because I was just about to return the netbook because of the dumbed-down brightness limitation.)